Editing Talk:904: Sports

This comic highlights the tendency to interpret so-called "events" based on essentially random, day-to-day changes that are indistinguishable from trends. Sports writers and directly accused of this. Financial analysts are equally culpable. D&D Dungeon Masters are guilty as well, but I reckon Randall states this somewhat tongue-in-cheek as the role of a DM is to deliberately spin a good yarn.
--[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

having lived in america and abroad, i think this applies heavily to america more so than other countries, although, more generally, we could throw in other countries that have 24-hour sports coverage (which is not most). similar to 24-hour news coverage, eventually you're going to be left with dead air once you're done with real news and so you invent narratives and sensationalise the most insignificant events. as for some evidence that this is an american thing and not "all sports commentary", see trevor noah's take: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tev12nUgCJ0 Trevor Noah - Sports in America]
--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.23|141.101.99.23]] 19:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Got a link?

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 19:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It feels more like Randall talks about sports with a kind of affection rather than with vicious sarcasm. While financial narratives derived from essentially random fluctuations are a bad thing in general (as people invest money in the belief that such things are more predictable than they are), sports is something different. For most people sports are just entertainment and part of the fun of is anticipation which means crawling over every drop of information and trying to guess if it'll make a difference or not. Fans want to be emotionally invested and somehow in control of their teams fate. And I'm pretty sure Randall knows that and as ever is just poking fun rather than trying to undermine a whole industry. It's very human to create narratives around our lives because it makes our day to day lives feel less random. When it's 'just for fun' then there's nothing bad about it it's only when it starts to involve people deluding themselves about large sums of other peoples money that it becomes a bad thing. 
[[User:LostAlone|LostAlone]] ([[User talk:LostAlone|talk]]) 11:57, 6 April 2015 (UTC)